Their fate had been threatened for two years, but the murals in the four buildings of the Seward Park Houses are safe from invasive interior design.

''On May 4, the co-op board voted to rescind its decision to proceed with a redecoration plan that would have destroyed the murals,'' said Israel Keller, who is president of the 1,700-unit development, situated where Canal Street becomes East Broadway.

When Seward Park, built in the 1950's as union housing, voted to become a co-op in 1996, the board decided to redecorate the lobbies and get rid of the 50-foot-wide murals painted in 1959 by a left-leaning artist, Hugo Gellert. Mr. Gellert died in 1984.

''Certain members thought the murals had to go,'' Mr. Keller said in February. ''Some thought they were ugly, some racist, some socialist.''

Other tenants, though, mounted a resistance, led by an urban planner, David Rubel.

Although the pro-mural faction won a November referendum by a narrow margin, the co-op board voted to destroy the murals anyway, saying that the referendum had been only for fact-finding.

After the controversy gained attention in the press, art historians and union leaders wrote the board, arguing that the murals had historic and artistic value. The board changed its mind, voting 8 to 2 to preserve them.